Going green to boost the household budget

"As well as benefitting the environment, ‘going green’ can also help homeowners make significant savings"

New research by M&S Bank has revealed that 78% of British homeowners are concerned with energy efficiency around the home with 69% saying this is for cost saving reasons.

The figures are up 19% on last year – compared with 28 per cent who were concerned for environmental reasons.

Of those who were concerned about the energy efficiency of their home, 96% were more or equally concerned this year than they were in 2015

Paul Stokes, Head of Products at M&S Bank, commented: “As well as benefitting the environment, ‘going green’ can also help homeowners make significant savings.”

Nearly all homeowners (98%) usually undertake at least one simple environmentally-friendly measure and 88% have already had at least one energy efficient improvement made to their home.

Top 5 energy saving measures

1. 87% - Recycle (e.g. metal, glass, plastic etc.)
2. 86% - Switch off the lights when not in the room
3. 81% - Use energy efficient light bulbs
4. 72% - Turn the heating off when I'm not in
5. 55% - Switch off appliances fully rather than leaving them on standby

Looking further ahead, the top energy efficiency home improvements for homeowners who haven’t made them already included installing solar panels (27%), an energy efficient boiler (21%) or a wind turbine (9%).

Paul continued: “It’s great to see that, homeowners recognise the benefits of making just a few simple, everyday changes to be more environmentally friendly. Over three-quarters have already made improvements to help them go green and with just over half (53%) seriously considering some sort of future energy saving home improvement, it’s clear that green improvements are at the forefront of homeowner’s minds.”

When it comes to buying new electrical appliances, 15% said they always buy products with the highest energy efficiency rating possible (A+++) and overall 49% always buy products with an ‘A’ rating or above – a 12% increase on last year.

76% of British homeowners are aware of the energy efficiency ratings of their household appliances and over half (57%) of these said that their appliances tended to have high energy efficiency ratings – 20% up on last year – while 24% had no idea about the energy efficiency ratings of their appliances.

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